Cui Yunchu raised an eyebrow. "Done being stubborn?"
Cui Yunfeng choked on her sobs. "It's my fault for dragging you down, Big Sister. Whatever you do to me, I deserve it."
"Then what are you crying for?"
Cui Yunfeng, "..."
"Well, I can't exactly laugh either." Her face was covered in tears, her makeup long ruined, leaving a comical mix of red and white smeared across her cheeks.
Cui Yunchu pulled her legs back, sitting cross-legged on the praying mat, and propped up her head to watch Cui Yunfeng cry.
Once she had cried enough, she returned to her mat and knelt perfectly straight.
Unable to bear it any longer, Cui Yunchu rolled her eyes.
She wasn't just a blockhead; she was simply a piece of dead wood that could not be carved.
"Cui Yunfeng, did your brain just fail to develop, or did you never have one to begin with?"
Cui Yunfeng looked at Cui Yunchu with red, swollen eyelids.
Cui Yunchu asked, "Do you know how cold the ancestral hall gets at night?"
Cui Yunfeng shook her head. "No, I rarely have to kneel here."
"..."
Cui Yunchu's face went blank for a moment, feeling as if a hidden weapon had just flown at her, instantly stabbing her until she bled profusely.
"What's wrong?"
Cui Yunchu glared fiercely at Cui Yunfeng before saying, "It's just the two of us here. Even if you kneel until a flower blooms from your head, no one will see it. So, being stubborn to the death is completely useless. Father can't see you."
Cui Yunfeng fell silent.
Cui Yunchu immediately followed up, "If you waste all your energy throwing a tantrum now, by the second half of the night, you'll only be able to curl up in a ball and wait to freeze half to death."
After saying that, she suddenly tilted her head, looked at Cui Yunfeng, and sneered, baring her teeth. "I kneel here a lot. It's the voice of experience."
"..."
Cui Yunfeng pressed her lips tightly together. "Big Sister, I'm sorry for dragging you into this."
Cui Yunchu let out a sigh. "It's fine, I'm used to it. Even if I didn't come, I'd still have to figure out a way to send you things. I wouldn't have slept peacefully anyway."
"Big Sister." Cui Yunfeng threw herself over and hugged Cui Yunchu. "You are so good to me."
Cui Yunchu smiled. "You are my younger sister, and I am the older sister. It's only right."
She patted Cui Yunfeng's head. "Yunfeng, never hold a grudge against yourself, and don't make your own body suffer. When you need to bend, you must bend."
Cui Yunfeng nodded. No longer acting stubborn, she leaned against Cui Yunchu as they sat.
"Big Sister, do you think Father will soften his heart?"
"Probably," Cui Yunchu said, boredly picking at the praying mat beneath her. At some point, a hole had formed in the mat, and Cui Yunchu was pulling out the cotton stuffing bit by bit, rolling it around in her hands.
Once she rolled it into a long strip, she tossed it away, then went back to pulling and rolling.
Before long, she had pulled out a large clump.
Cui Yunfeng said, "Big Sister, stop pulling at it. You're going to empty the whole thing, and we still have to kneel on it later."
Cui Yunchu acted as if she hadn't heard, though she started pulling out much less than before, taking only a tiny bit each time.
"It's fine. Once we leave the ancestral hall, Xing'er will sneak in and stuff it full again."
After all, she would be the one kneeling on it sooner or later. She cared more about the items in the ancestral hall than the head steward did.
Even that hole was something she used to pass the time.
"Big Sister, wouldn't it be nice if at least one of the three of us had a mother? Then I would know how to cry properly."
Cui Yunchu glanced down at her. "To be precise, it would be your mother. If it were my mother, I wouldn't even need to cry to Father; she would give me enough reasons to cry on her own."
Hearing this, Cui Yunfeng buried her head in Cui Yunchu's arm and giggled.
Only when a small corner at the front of Cui Yunchu's mat was completely hollowed out did she finally stop her movements.
"Tell me, who exactly made the rule about kneeling in the ancestral hall?"
Cui Yunfeng replied, "The ancestors."
Cui Yunchu's gaze immediately fell upon the rows of memorial tablets on the altar, and she suddenly grinned.
In the silence, facing dozens of memorial tablets, Cui Yunchu's laughter sounded rather eerie. Cui Yunfeng shrank back. "Big Sister, what... what are you laughing at?"
Cui Yunchu said, "I'm laughing at how interesting our ancestors truly are."
She sat cross-legged. "Did you know? In the past, every time I came here, I would talk to them. I'd speak to each one individually, whenever I was scared or bored."
"I even leaned close to their tablets and said, 'You know, you're already dead, yet you still have to listen to your descendants rambling on all night, every few days. How must that feel? You can't even find peace in death.' Tell me, doesn't the person who made this rule deserve what they're getting?"
Making people kneel in the ancestral hall while alive, and having to face generations of unfilial descendants kneeling and rambling in the ancestral hall after death... Just thinking about it annoyed Cui Yunchu.
"I don't know if they find it annoying, but I certainly find it annoying on their behalf."
Cui Yunfeng hugged Cui Yunchu, the corners of her lips turning up. "Big Sister, I really like you."
No matter the situation or circumstance, she could always amuse herself and make people feel relaxed and happy.
Cui Yunchu said, "I quite like myself too."
Playing by herself, making herself laugh... she had done this alone for over a decade, and she was quite happy with it.
Time ticked by. The ancestral hall only had a few very small windows, and it was already pitch black outside.
Inside the hall, it was growing colder, and Cui Yunchu's stomach began to rumble.
Cui Yunfeng sat up straight. "Big Sister, are you hungry? I'm a little hungry too."
"Wait here." Cui Yunchu climbed up and went over to the altar holding the memorial tablets. Cui Yunfeng immediately followed, watching her lie on the floor, lift the tablecloth, and peer underneath the table.
"Big Sister, what are you looking for?"
"How can it not be here?" Cui Yunchu dropped the cloth, glanced at Cui Yunfeng, and then immediately lifted it again to continue searching.
It really wasn't there.
She crawled out from under the table. "Where is Yun'er?"
Cui Yunfeng pointed at the main doors of the ancestral hall, then walked over silently and pulled them open.
A moment later, Xing'er and Yun'er sneaked inside.
Yun'er asked, "Eldest Miss, you were looking for me?"
"Where are the things?" Cui Yunchu pointed at the table.
"What... things?" Yun'er looked completely bewildered.
Cui Yunchu was about to jump up. "The things I told you to hide! The food, the bedding?"
Yun'er, "..."
"I... I didn't hide them." The Eldest Miss was never very reliable with her words, so she had assumed her miss was just talking casually. Besides, the situation had been urgent at the time, and her mind was entirely focused on her young lady; she simply hadn't had the time to hide anything.
Cui Yunchu put her hands on her hips, her eyelids drooping as she glared at Yun'er.
"Before the troops move, the rations and forage must go first. Do you know what that means?"
Yun'er tugged at the corner of her clothes in self-reproach. "I... I was thinking..."
"What were you thinking?" Cui Yunchu was breathless with frustration. "In that situation, did you really think your young lady had any chance of winning?"
As a maid, shouldn't she have considered all the consequences and done her best to minimize the harm to her master?
"Or did you think standing there like a post was going to help?"
Yun'er's eyes brimmed with tears. "It's all my fault. I failed in my duties and didn't think things through."
Yun'er hurriedly knelt down to beg for forgiveness.
Xing'er, who was always being scorned by Cui Yunchu as a blockhead and considered inferior to Mo'er and Yun'er, finally seized her chance. She spoke up, "Exactly. In the past, I always had everything prepared for you in advance, Miss."
Cui Yunchu, "..."
Was that something to be proud of? Was it something worth showing off?
"Just shut up."
Xing'er embarrassedly fell silent.
Cui Yunfeng said, "Didn't they say Xing'er always prepares everything in advance? We will still have things to use. Eldest Sister, please don't be angry."
Xing'er, "..."
"This servant... this servant..."
She choked on her words for a moment before saying, "This servant didn't think today's incident could possibly implicate my lady, so... I didn't prepare anything."
"..."
"..."
The group fell into a collective silence.
Xing'er lowered her head, pouting her lips.
It truly wasn't that she was slacking off. She genuinely never expected that a matter that had absolutely nothing to do with her lady could still be pinned on her.
Her lady was simply too unlucky.
